Cytarabine

Or people complaining about people complaining about DCS progress :smartass: It’s just like inception.

It has a passive electronically scanned array radar so can direct multiple beams to engage multiple targets with SARH missiles. First fighter to incorporate an electronically scanned array radar.

I don’t get the obsession with HUD symbology, particularly after playing with the (albeit work in progress) implementation before it was removed. The HUD designation and slaving was super easy and very useful. I find it (acknowledging both are unfinished) more useful than trying to slew the marker around the HUD in the viper.

Could some of this be more of the world being rendered given the bubble canopy than the Hornet or Tomcat where there is a lot of relatively static cockpit in the way.

The gunsight is great. No longer do I feel like I need to fill the area in front of my target with lead and pray. Now I put my dots of death over the target, squeeze and watch the fireworks.

Anyone else having issues using the mission since the latest patch?

Just wondering does the Viper have (IRL) and is it intended to get (for real) flyout cues similar to the Hornet has? They are very useful (particularly to know when to go nose cold or when to look at that bit of sky for the pop).

MFD readability looks to be better in the new patch (? Side effect of the new lighting engine)

JHMCS displays ‘HARM’ in large letters Occasionally when using the JHMCS in Air to Air mode there is a big text of HARM in the middle. Any idea what this means? (And no my plane wasn’t carrying any HARMS)

So hit the designate button and you will get a direction indicator and a target diamond (if it is within the HUD FoV), then adjust it from there, designate once adjusted to be on target. You will be able to do things even more easily when you can slave the TGP to the VV or an auto target. On the plus side you can use the SA display and the map to move the TGP over a geographic feature, known SAM site or waypoint.

I looked up some photos of night air refueling at the tanker is lit up like a christmas tree in comparison to what we have in DCS. So sadly for the time being it is NVG's on the night refueling.

You can see it on the HUD (goes from ACT to TTG) and in the flyout cue in STT (which is going to be added to TWS soon).

Yep - it provides the risk of damaging the carrier deck, killing crew and destroying aircraft parked on deck. The appropriate response to this situation would be to come alongside and punch out. I get the ‘in a sim’ wanting to see if you can land an unmodified Viper on a carrier, but modifying to make it ‘carrier capable’ doesn’t make much sense for day to day usage. If carrier ops are your thing and you want a Viper equivalent get the Hornet!

Well done. Beating an R-77 is pretty similar. I suspect though you are wasting the chaff, you can beat the missile at that range kinematically without using decoys, save them for when shot at within RNoE (or against longer ranged missiles).

Here is my little training scaenario I have put together (on the NTTR map as it is where I like to have my training scenarios). Pits you in an F-18 against 2 modern Russian combatants. The first is a co-altitude Mig-29S with a loadout of R-77 and R-73 missiles. Once you splash that you will face off against a Mig-31 with a loadout of R-33 and R-40 missiles which is flying well above your starting altitude (and fast). (Of course more realistically you (and they) will have wingmen, but this is just for practice). https://forums.eagle.ru/attachment.php?attachmentid=226808&stc=1&d=1581065100 F-18C - Project HAVE DONUT II.miz

My approach (after reading up, watching lots of videos on the topic (recommend DCS Debrief, Growling Sidewinder and Spudknocker on this)). I then have a mission similar to the Viper instant action Intercept mission, just with a Hornet. instead; 1. Full burner - speed is life and the Hornet is not the fastest aircraft going around but you should comfortably be able to get to Mach 1.2-1.3 at a respectable altitude with an air to air load. Lose the tanks however - they should be empty anyway at this point. 2. Don’t fly directly at the target, fly somewhat offset. You want to start creating problems for them and their missile to solve. An offset shot lowers the closure rate and thus their effective range. 3. As soon as they fire (or you get close enough that they will have fired an ET which gives no RWR indication) crank. Try not to bleed your speed too much. At this point you are going to be around 20nm and it is decision time. If; A - you are outmatched - shoot within RMAX (in TWS) as you turn in and continue the turn to place the bandit at near the gimbal limits, then once the missile goes pitbull continue the turn and escape. Your opponent is going to either expend energy defeating your missile (facilitating your escape) or will eat a missile. Win win. B - you want (or need) to press - don’t shoot but still turn keeping your speed up until just within gimbal limits changing orientation and chasing a bandit which is no longer head on aspect should bleed the missile or energy, then at around 15nm turn back in aiming to be nose hot just as you enter RNoE and fire, continue the turn and once the missile is pitbull turn away and extend. At this range your AMRAAM is almost guaranteed to kill and if it doesn’t your opponent will have expended a lot of energy leaving you in a good position to recommit and score the kill. Doing this you should be virtually untouchable even in a multi target engagement. The other one to try is the 4 v 4 Mig-29 ACM mission which you can edit to update both sides loadouts. While with Sparrows it is a challenge, with AMRAAMS and TWS it is stupid easy applying these sorts of tactics

Agree entirely. Really for all the flack ED get from some quarters both the F-18 and the F-16 in their current incomplete states are a lot of fun and will only get better. I have trouble deciding between the two so am glad I have both!

They changed it as it was not realistic to feed TOO targets into PP.

Just checking you have the correct laser code? The TGP (and most JTACs) default to 1688 while the LMAV default is 1111.

If you notice the HAFU is smaller when you don’t have your own track, this is a surveillance track from the AWACS and depends entirely on the classification as HAFU from the AWACS. When you have radar contact yourself it then goes yellow as you will notice the bottom will still be a chevron (the AWACS is calling it hostile) while in the absence of your own IFF it can’t call it hostile and make it red ok the radar and a diamond on the HUD. Once again you IFF the target the combination of the lack of a mode 4 response along with the AWACS classification will make it meet the rules for hostile.

I think it is going to have a few use cases; - Finding moving vehicles which can then be used to slave the TPOD to (or an IR-MAV) to engage - SAR and long range weapons like the SLAM-ER could be interesting, particularly at striking large targets at extreme range. - The Harpoon will clearly benefit a lot from the sea mode for engaging shipping targets. So another tool which will be be useful in some situations.

Hornet is life. Granting that both get completed eventually... Hornet is still life; However, to show I am balanced here are some pro’s for the Viper - Faster (as long as you don’t want to you know, carry stuff) - Can get 9G turns (making sure the pilot blacks out as quickly as possible) - Has the HTS pod in future (so you can tell the aircraft with some real reach where to point their MITL cruise missiles) - Has lovely color LCD displays (that you need to squint to read in VR) - The HSD display shows more information than the SA display in the Hornet (no, seriously this is a pro) - No need to learn carrier landings (because case III recoveries on a pitch black night with a pitching deck are hard)

This I can't wait for. Well worth sacrificing 1 AMRAAM for I think!

Well you largely do have point of origin as a classified as you receive a HAFU from the AWACS by datalink (which if they classify as hostile and mode 4 shows no reply you can classify as hostile) and that is one of the methods AWACS will use to call a hostile (took off from enemy airfield). If you see an aircraft take off from a hostile airfield you can use PLID to classify it as hostile yourself. At the moment we only have the manual IFF mode, there is an automatic IFF mode to come I believe which should take some of the pain away.

It seems to me it is just a different workflow to the Viper or Hog with the plan to be that you designate an area of interest in the HUD (or JHMCS, HSI, ground radar etc) and then are heads down in the FLIR display to identify and designate the target, at which point there is an indicator on the HUD to assist steering and engaging the target. It makes sense that way why there is no indicator in the HUD.